“The 2025 budget law allocated 2 million euros for each of the years 2026 and 2027 for oncological screening programs in contaminated areas. Eight months have passed and the implementing decree that should have made those funds operational has not yet been signed. In the meantime, the citizens of Crotone who live in one of the most polluted sites of national interest for reclamation in Italy continue to wait”. This is what M5S Vice President Vittoria Baldino reported in a note who presented a question, co-signed by deputies Anna Laura Orrico – Riccardo Tucci – Ilaria Fontana, to the ministers of Health and Economy.
“The data concerning the Sin of Crotone – Baldino remarks – are dramatic and leave no room for interpretation. Over one million tons of special and dangerous waste, including materials with asbestos. Contamination by arsenic, cadmium, mercury, chromium, lead and other heavy metals with concentrations higher than the intervention values. An excess of tumor risk documented by the Sentieri report. A report by the Extraordinary Commissioner which explicitly speaks of “continuing risk for the environment and public health”. These are data state officials.”
“Last 8 June the Regional Council unanimously approved, on the proposal of the M5S regional councilor Elisabetta Barbuto, a motion which commits the Council to establishing an active and free health monitoring protocol for residents of the SIN. All council groups voted in favour: opposition, majority, including Fratelli d’Italia, Forza Italia, Lega and the Occhiuto Presidente group. The message should be clear. Yet the decree from the government has not yet arrived”, continues the parliamentarian.
“I asked the ministers to explain why that decree has not yet been signed, when it will be issued and whether the SIN of Crotone-Cassano-Cerchiara will be included among the priority territories. The funds for 2026 risk not being used due to an unacceptable bureaucratic delay. The citizens of Crotone cannot wait any longer after the enormous environmental damage they have suffered”, he concludes.